“Just breathe easily. In and out, in and out…”
Dr Bellen looked on with concern as he held the clear plastic mask to Indigo’s face. The cat’s breathing was very deep but her lungs had not been gathering enough air. She had been brought to the infirmary complaining of great discomfort and difficulty breathing. The x-rays taken as a result showed that her lungs had collapsed, and were barely functioning. The oxygen she was receiving was helping, and the injection of medicine she had been given had reduced the pain.
“That was a rough one…” Indigo said, her voice muffled by the mask. “I’m doing all right now.”
“But you can’t go on like this, I’m afraid…”
“I know. It’s time to leave, isn’t it?”
Dr Bellen nodded. Whenever an alarm went off from any room in the Cosy Cabin Feline Sanitarium, it also went off in the doctor’s office and quarters, to alert him to trouble with one of the residents. When he arrived at Indigo’s room, the nurse and physician on duty were already present, administering oxygen. Dr Bellen listened to Indigo’s lungs and immediately ordered an x-ray. He now sat with his friend in a quiet and comfortable room in the infirmary.
“I think you’ll have to go tonight.”
“You mean I won’t be able to say good-bye to anyone?”
“Is there anyone you want to say good-bye to?”
“No. They’re all annoying. Except maybe Moxy.”
Dr Bellen smiled. Indigo had never been on amicable terms with the other residents of the sanitarium, though she consented to tolerate the Director of Resident Relations. She preferred to be apart from the other cats, eating her meals by herself and generally staying in her room.
“I won’t need to take much, will I?” she asked, after more inhalations from the oxygen tank.
“Not much at all,” answered Dr Bellen. “Everything you’ll need will be provided there.”
“In Samarra…” Indigo had heard of the land to the west, of course, and expected to go there some day. But, like everyone, she didn’t expect it to be today, this night. “I suppose you’ll be ordering a taxi.”
“No. I think you should go by ambulance, just in case.”
Indigo nodded wearily, and Dr Bellen helped her up.
The sanitarium was still and quiet, the residents sleeping, for the most part, and the staff reduced for the night, though, as Indigo found to her relief, there were staff always ready. Indigo was placed on a small wheeled stool and an attendant pushed it slowly through the corridors of the medical wing, while Dr Bellen walked beside. Indigo had been walking with an impairment for some time, landing on her whole rear feet rather than just the toes, as cats usually did. She consequently made slow and uncomfortable progress, and a stool was easier for her.
“I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you, Doctor,” she said, sounding like she was talking in a tunnel. The oxygen mask was still strapped in place.
“You’ve never been a burden, Indigo. You’ve had your troubles, but that’s what the sanitarium is for.”
The cat was quiet thereafter, even when, at the front doors of the building, she and Dr Bellen found Moxy waiting for them.
“The ambulance is just outside, Doctor,” the Director of Resident Relations announced excitedly. “Do you want the siren and the flashing lights, too?” Moxy seemed eager for brightness and volume to accompany Indigo.
“I don’t think they will be necessary, Moxy,” the human said, indulgently.
“Oh. All right.” Moxy made as if to touch Indigo, but thought better of it. Instead, he said, “We’ll miss you, Indigo.”
“You will?” The sick cat seemed surprised at this statement.
“Yes, of course. Every cat makes an impression. You were a…comfort. Like an old couch or ratty sweater…”
Indigo glanced up at Dr Bellen, who was trying not to smile. Indigo’s expression was sardonic, an expression cats do very well, though not all cats understand it when they see it.
“Thanks, Moxy…”
The night outside was balmy, the air tinged with the last scents from the trees’ spring blossoms. There was a freshness that allowed Dr Bellen to remove Indigo’s air mask and let her breathe for the time being on her own. She was helped into the back of the ambulance, and Dr Bellen climbed in with her. He nodded to the driver and the nurse in the front, and the vehicle pulled away from the sanitarium, Moxy watching from the open doors.
The journey was restful for Indigo. At one point, Dr Bellen asked if she would like more oxygen, to which she replied:
“I have my own mask on,” referring to the black fur that covered the upper part of her face. Dr Bellen smiled.
For much of the way, the cat drifted in and out of sleep, lulled by the movement of the ambulance on the well-paved highway that ran through Idylland. She was tired, the human knew, from not sleeping much due to discomfort. He really should have urged her to go to Samara earlier than this but, until her breathing became difficult, she was not ready. Now she woke from her slumber with a start.
“Doctor?”
“Yes, Indie?”
“Why do we have to go through all this?”
“All what?”
“Sickness, and ill-health. I was diabetic when I came to you. That’s how I guessed I would never have my own home. No one wants a diabetic cat. Then I developed pancreatitis. And if that wasn’t enough, I got those lumps on my, er, under-side. They’ve gotten worse, haven’t they?”
“They have,” the doctor replied, gravely.
“Then what’s the point of a life that’s filled with sickness?”
Dr Bellen stroked Indigo’s smooth head, and she purred. She had always liked the touch of people. She had loved the family she’d had at one point, years before. But they had left her, and it was only through luck that she had come to the sanitarium.
“I think it’s so that others can care for you, and show their worth, and to show you that you matter.”
“I am sick just so others can take care of me? That’s my purpose?”
“No, that’s their purpose: a person, a cat, anyone, exists to concern himself with the welfare of others. So you are there for them, so that they may give the best that they have inside. In return, you give your best to them.”
Indigo was puzzled, and her tail twitched in confusion.
“But I am not a very nice cat. I haven’t been nice to the others.”
Dr Bellen chuckled and said, “You’ve allowed them to give you what you need, which was space, and solitude. And you’ve allowed them to be there for you if you required them. You permitted them to serve their purpose.” Chucking Indie under her chin, the human added, “And you have given to me, too.”
“Because I let you take care of me?”
“Not just that. You brought me happiness. Do you remember all those nights you lie next to me and put your paw on my face?”
“In your eye, you mean, and on your nose and mouth…” Indigo could not help purring at the recollection.
“And your whiskers tickled me,” Dr Bellen reminded her. “I think you were doing that deliberately.”
“Maybe…” Indigo wasn’t admitting to anything.
“That was affection and regard, and they made me feel good and liked. You see, Indie, cats, dogs, other animals, they don’t have to think about fulfilling their purpose. They do it just by living, just by being themselves.”
“And our purpose is to make everyone else feel better…” Indigo nodded a little. “By doing that, we make ourselves feel better, and be better.”
“That’s what I believe,” said Dr Bellen.
Indigo rubbed her head against the doctor’s hand.
During their conversation, the ambulance had been travelling steadily westward, and the sun had risen just as steadily behind it. The morning had brightened, and the sun, though it didn’t make everything hotter, made it warmer in a different way. There was fresh warmth from new rays. The leaves on the trees rustled in the slightest of breezes, as if stretching after their snooze in the night, and the grass sprang upright to greet the life-giving sunshine.
The ambulance stopped. Indigo looked around. It appeared that the party had halted in the middle of the country. Towns and villages had been left behind, and the last farms of Idylland were some miles to the east. The back door of the ambulance opened and Dr Bellen assisted Indigo to the pavement. She was puzzled.
“I thought we were going to the station,” she said, though even as she spoke, she realised that the sanitarium and its station - indeed, most of Idylland - must be far away now.
“Not every road to Samarra lies along the railway,” Dr Bellen told her, with a smile. He pointed up the gentle slope of a hill, bare except for a great carpet of very green grass. The blue sky beyond it was almost too bright to look at. “This is your road, Indie.”
“Will you come with me, Doctor?” the cat asked.
“To the top of the hill, yes.”
Leaving the ambulance behind, the driver and nurse waving good-bye, cat and man began walking up the incline. Indigo thought it might be very hard going for her, because of her trouble walking lately, and her strength was not great. Yet, as she stepped, she felt different. Each footfall was stronger than the last and, as she neared the crest of the hill, she thought she could almost run.
Then she observed, at the top of the hill, a cairn, made of smooth stones. It was a border marker. There were no walls or fences between Idylland and Samarra, of course, no guards or security. And here, there were not even the friendly customs men who had so very little to do at frontier railway stations. There was only a marker: here was Idylland, there was Samarra. Dr Bellen stopped when they reached it.
“Doctor, look!” exclaimed Indigo. “Samarra!”
As far as the eye could see beyond the hill, there were green fields and woods, rivers winding their tree-bound courses through meadows. Little villages and farms added reds and whites and purples and pinks to the scenery; cows and sheep grazed lazily. The sky was a deep but bright blue, dotted with towering white clouds, and on the horizon, a rainstorm refreshed the day.
But closer to hand, at the base of the hill, a road curved by. A limousine waited there, and two humans, in the cornflower-blue uniforms of Samarra’s Civil Welcome Organisation, stood beside it, waving.
“Is that for me?” Indigo peered up at Dr Bellen.
“Of course,” the man said.
Indigo was purring so loud she barely could hear anything else. She began walking down the hill. Then she broken into a run, and she flew over the grass faster and more lithe than any juvenile. But then she stopped and gazed back.
“Aren’t you coming, Doctor?” she called.
“Not yet. Some day,” laughed the human. Then he shouted, “Thank you, Indigo.”
The cat was mystified by Dr Bellen’s last words, and thought about them as she ran down to the automobile, where the two men greeted her with salutes. One opened a rear door of the limousine for her. Soon all three were in the car, and it drove off. The sun was warm on the fields, and the grass almost glowed. Clouds moved high above, and the far-off rain gave woods and pastures their daily drink. As the limousine drew farther from the hill, and the man and even the cairn on it disappeared against the bright sky, Indigo realised why the doctor had thanked her, and she purred all the louder.
“My purpose!” she whispered to herself.
